then and now: A catamaran sightseeing boat, left, sits atop a two-story building among the tsunami debris April 3 in Ostuchi, Japan. Right: A devastated Otsuchi is seen Saturday, one day shy of six months since the March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami. The tsunami damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis in decades. An estimated 22,900 people died or are still missing.

Takashi Yamada would prefer life without the nearby nuclear power plant. But the 66-year-old retired electronics retailer who lives in Matsuyama, Japan, says, “It is also true we all need it.”

Host communities such as this seaside city on the island of Shikoku need the jobs and financial subsidies the plants provide. And Japan’s $5.5 trillion economy needs the energy.

Many Japanese have grown uneasy with nuclear power since the March 11 tsunami, which left more than 20,000 dead or missing and sent a plant in Fukushima into meltdown.

Anti-nuke protesters took to the streets, and a heated debate ensued over the future of atomic energy. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that 55 percent of Japanese want to reduce the number of reactors in the country.

Six months after the disaster, though, the nation seems to be sticking with nuclear power, at least for now. Unlike Germany, which accelerated plans to phase out atomic energy after Fukushima, Japan shows no signs of doing so. In recent days, utilities began newly mandated earthquake and tsunami stress tests, a first step toward restarting reactors idled for maintenance.

“What is the alternative?” asked Fumiko Nakamura, a flower-arrangement teacher in Tokyo. She worries about nuclear safety in earthquake-prone Japan but said it will take time to develop other types of energy. “Japan is a resource-poor nation, and we need electricity.”

The world’s third-largest economy lacks other sources such as coal. An island nation, it can’t easily buy electricity from neighbors, as Germany can from France. Alternative energy is expensive. And nuclear technology is the nation’s pride, even a lucrative export.

Moreover, consensus-oriented Japan doesn’t have an outspoken public saying “No” to nuclear power.

In a society that frowns upon defiance of the government, many Japanese are reluctant to join a movement that is often discredited as eccentric, even after Fukushima. That means Japan’s leaders have no real need to reject an industry that has helped fuel the country’s prosperity for decades.

“The everyday hasn’t changed,” said Haruki Tange, a professor of policymaking at Ehime University in Matsuyama. “There is this prevailing mood that makes it really difficult to voice any opposition to nuclear power.”

March 11 may yet prove to be Japan’s Three Mile Island moment. No new plants have been approved in the U.S. since the 1979 disaster, and Japan has canceled two new ones already and shelved plans to increase its reliance on nuclear power from 30 percent to 50 percent.

But Tange’s resignation underscores a widespread acceptance of the status quo in Japan, home to 54 reactors speckling the coast.

Matsuyama, a city of 500,000, sits 30 miles from Ikata, one of the world’s most seismologically risky plants. The government said there is a 70 percent probability of a major quake here in the next 30 years.

In an unprecedented protest, about 100 people took to the streets in July to demand Ikata be shut down.

“I always thought protests were scary,” said one marcher, 22-year-old university student Miwa Ozue. “But now, I want the world to know.”

Most onlookers ignored the largely jovial crowd that banged on drums and chanted slogans. Two months later, Shikoku Electric Power Co. is moving forward with stress tests on one of Ikata’s three reactors, which was stopped in April for routine inspections.

Survey results

According to an AP-GfK poll of 1,000 adults across Japan between July 29 and Aug. 10:

• Six out of 10 respondents said they had little or no confidence in the safety of Japan’s nuclear plants. Only 5 percent were very confident.

• Roughly a third said they want to keep the number of nuclear plants about the same, 55 percent want to reduce the number of reactors, and 3 percent want to eliminate them completely.

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